The first mistake happened on the seventh day.
Xianyin had ordered the flood channels dug deeper and angled westward, following the natural slope she'd mapped by moonlight. The villagers obeyed—not because they trusted her, but because Kael had stood beside her and said nothing.
When the rains came early, they came hard.
Too hard.
The river swelled like a beast unchained.
By dusk, water burst through the western embankment and tore through three fields, dragging seed, tools, and two livestock pens into the ravine.
No one was hurt.
But the loss was immediate.
And visible.
Xianyin stood ankle-deep in mud, her skirts ruined, hands shaking as villagers shouted.
"She promised us harvest!"
"This is what outsiders bring!"
"Send her back to the capital!"
Kael arrived as the shouting peaked.
He did not shout back.
He looked at the destroyed fields.
Then at her.
And waited.
The silence cut deeper than any accusation.
"I misjudged the rain's speed," Xianyin said, voice steady though her chest burned. "The channels should have been staggered."
An elder spat into the mud. "Your learning doesn't feed us."
"No," she agreed. "But my correction might."
She turned to Kael. "Give me permission to reroute the overflow. Now. Before nightfall."
"If you're wrong again," one villager snapped, "we starve."
Xianyin met his gaze. "If I walk away, you starve anyway."
Kael exhaled once.
Then he said, "Do it."
The word was calm.
Final.
The villagers obeyed—not her, but him.
She worked until her hands bled, redirecting water, collapsing one channel to save two others. When the moon rose, the flood had been tamed into a slow, deliberate flow.
Damage remained.
But disaster did not.
That night, Kael brought her food.
She ate sitting on the ground, too tired to care.
"You didn't defend yourself," he said.
"There was nothing to defend," she replied. "I failed."
"You adjusted," he corrected. "Quickly."
She looked at him then. "In the capital, one mistake was death."
He frowned. "Here, mistakes are paid for with work."
She laughed softly. It surprised them both.
"You didn't hesitate," she said. "When you sided with me."
Kael's gaze was level. "You didn't lie. And you stayed."
A pause.
Then, quietly: "I don't need a flawless empress. I need one who stands in the mud when plans break."
Her throat tightened.
In two lifetimes, no man had ever said that to her.
Later, alone, she stared at the wasteland beyond the torchlight.
In her previous life, this was where she would have been poisoned.
Discarded.
Forgotten.
Now, her hands were cracked, her pride bruised—and something dangerous bloomed in her chest.
Hope.
Far away, in the capital she no longer claimed, a different river flowed.
And in its current, a shadow watched westward.